A group of lawyers presented a petition in the Supreme Court, addressed to Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia, seeking criminal contempt action against Congress Member of Parliament from Kerala K. Sudhakaran for his alleged remarks against certain retired Supreme Court judges .
Instead of filing the petition in the Registry, the lawyers presented it to Mr. Kapadia's office.
In the petition under Article 129, they said that after the Supreme Court sentenced the former Kerala Minister, Balakrishna Pillai, to one-year rigorous imprisonment in the Idamalayar dam case, at a public meeting, Mr. Sudhakaran maligned retired judges of the Supreme Court and the institution. By his speech, he scandalised and lowered the authority of the Supreme Court in the eyes of the public and interfered with the due course of judicial proceedings.
The petition said that besides Mr. Sudhakran, others also made per se contemptuous speeches criticising the Supreme Court for the judgment against Mr. Pillai. The respondents also levelled bribery and corruption charges against Supreme Court judges.
The tone and tenor of the speeches were nowhere near any constructive criticism, but amounted to a scurrilous attack on how the judgments came to be pronounced, and on the character of the Supreme Court.
The petition sought a direction to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against the Mr. Sudhakaran and other respondents for their speeches.
A First Information Report was also registered with the Delhi Police for criminal action against Mr. Sudhakaran and others. The FIR wanted the police to investigate Mr. Sudhakaran's role in the alleged crime and also whether he was part of the conspiracy hatched by the accused in the crime of giving bribe to the judge concerned.
